YOUR SPIRIT, ESSENCE, AND ENERGY - Discover Your Authentic Self: Be You, Be Free, Be Happy - Sherrie Dillard

Discover Your Authentic Self: Be You, Be Free, Be Happy - Sherrie Dillard (2016)

Chapter 9. YOUR SPIRIT, ESSENCE, AND ENERGY

You are energy and spirit. In this chapter, you can come to know yourself in this way. Through exploring your subtle energy, your aura and chakras, deeper self-truths are revealed. Although it may seem to be a less tangible way to know yourself, your energy is the core of the true you.

119. Perceiving Your Essence

Where does the authentic self live within you? Is it in your brain, heart, or belly? Within all of these areas and spread out beyond your body, your true self is alive and active. Your authentic self is more than what you have done, your beliefs and opinions, your thoughts, your emotions, and your body. It is energy. Your authentic self is the meeting point of your essence and your soul and spirit. It is the central hub where all of you comes together.

Your authentic self receives energy vibrations from a higher source of love and wisdom. Some call this God, divine being, divine presence, Spirit, positive energy, or the All That Is. However you choose to describe this unseen and benevolent presence or whatever your conscious experience of it has been, it is always with you.

As you become more aware of and work in unison with this powerful source of love and wisdom, you attract and receive more positivity and vital life source energy. You can use this energy in every area of your life. When confronted with problems, pressures, and challenges, remember to draw from this energy.

Become comfortable with the intangible and with essence. We can have a hard time discerning and believing in things that exist outside of the material and physical. To accept and truly know your authentic self requires a revolutionary step into the unknown. You are a mystery and a truth that cannot be fully grasped.

Try this simple practice.

Close your eyes. Take a full, deep breath and ask yourself, Who am I?

Then pause, breathe, and listen within. Repeat the question a few times. Each time, pause, breathe, and listen within.

Then ask yourself the following questions:

✵ Am I my body?

✵ Am I my feelings and emotions?

✵ Am I my thoughts or my beliefs?

✵ Am I my past, my future, or my possessions?

✵ Who am I?

As you ask yourself these questions, pause after each one. Quietly listen and feel.

Eventually you will begin to feel a presence, an energy. It may be subtle and you may not be able to define or grasp it. Just allow it to be present. Become more comfortable with knowing yourself in this way. Perceiving yourself as energy is transformative.

I am spiritual presence.

120. You Are Energy Frequency

In your purest state of being, you are an individualized expression of pure divine energy. There are many layers of truth that define you. Your authentic self comprises your feelings and emotions, your thoughts, and your spirit and soul self. At the most basic level, all of these are energy.

In 1905, Albert Einstein proved that physical and material matter broken down into minuscule components exists as indestructible energy. Never static and always in motion, these minuscule particles of energy vibrate at different frequencies and create your individualized energy pattern. Like a snowflake, you are a unique and one-of-a-kind energy formation. There is no one quite like you.

You are constantly changing and transforming your energetic frequency. Emotions such as love and compassion have a high energetic frequency. Fear, pain, depression, and other similar emotions have a low energetic frequency. Negative thoughts have a low frequency, and positive thoughts have a higher frequency. When your overall frequency is low, you attract and create negative experiences. Loving yourself and being kind and forgiving to yourself and others, along with thinking positive thoughts, elevates your vibrational frequency. A higher vibrational frequency empowers you to attract and create positive experiences, love, abundance, and well-being.

Yet it is not only your everyday thoughts and feelings that contribute to creating and attracting what you experience. Unresolved emotional wounds, repressed anger, and traumatic memories and past experiences also send out an energetic signal. These powerful but often unconscious energies attract negative, disruptive, and confusing experiences and people into your life.

The more you release and heal the past and choose to live in positivity, the more you live from your authentic self. From this center of high frequency vibration, you naturally attract and create the pure path of love, abundance, and purpose that you are meant to be living.

I choose positivity.

121. Your Subtle Energy Body

Your authentic self is birthed from pure energy. The seed from which your individuality takes form has its roots in the unseen. Although we identify who we are primarily through our five senses and our thoughts and emotions, we are so much more than this. As you develop a sensitivity to your true self, you will be able to better perceive the nonphysical aspects of who you are.

Your subtle energy body is an intricate, pulsating web of energy that both extends beyond the physical body and vibrates from within it. The aura is the outermost egg-shaped web of the subtle energy body. It is made up of energy vibration and undulating layers of color that expand and contract with graceful fluidity. The aura contains seven inner layers of energy, each serving a specific function. These energy layers are the interface between the physical body and cosmic life force energy. Each of the seven layers filters and regulates the interaction and interconnectedness between an individual’s spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical energies. The aura also protects the body from toxins and detrimental energies and acts as an antenna to attract and receive positive and life-giving pure energy.

The seven layers of the aura are connected to the chakras. Chakras are spiral discs of energy that act as receivers and distributors of pure life force energy throughout the body. There are seven major chakras located from above the head to the base of the spine. These seven chakras are each encoded with seven varying levels of vibration, which absorb and process our emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical experiences and life lessons. Each chakra contains a diary of information about our present and past-life challenges, karma, and soul purpose and potential.

Your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health and well-being directly correlate to the health of the chakras. Highly sensitive to our thoughts, actions, feelings, experiences, and spiritual purpose, the chakras are influenced and affected by all that we experience. When we deny our feelings, harbor negativity and critical judgments, stuff away our pain, and detach from our personal power, our chakras absorb all of this material. The chakras are never in denial. They embody all that we think, feel, and experience as well as our higher soul purpose and individuality. The heavier energy vibrations of negativity, pain, and powerlessness block and restrict the chakras from distributing the necessary flow of vital life force source energy to our organs and physiological systems.

It is important to become aware of the subtle energy body to fully understand our authentic self. Although tuning in to the subtle and nonphysical aspects of self may seem difficult, our energy makeup provides us with insight and important information about who we are. When you define yourself only by the more concrete parts of who you are, you limit your potential. Your innate power goes unrecognized and lies dormant within. Understanding your subtle energy body provides you with greater opportunity to unleash the power and potential of your total being.

I am vibrant high-frequency energy.

122. First Chakra: Rooted in Your True Self

Your seven chakras are spinning vortexes of vital energy that extend from above your head to the base of your spine. Each of your chakras is a power center that embodies the lessons that you have come into this life to learn and your thoughts, feelings, and experiences associated with these lessons.

The first chakra is the root chakra, or base chakra. It is located at the base of the spine. This chakra is energetically coded with issues of survival, our sense of belonging, our instincts, and our ability to live our purpose. The function of this chakra is to empower us to fully live our divine purpose in the physical material world. When we are unable to identify and make choices that demonstrate our highest good in a concrete way, this chakra loses its necessary energy fuel. We experience fear and insecurity and lack the ability to take care of ourselves. However, when we are conscious of and live in alignment with our authentic self, our first chakra empowers us to manifest positive opportunities and supportive people who assist us in living our purpose.

The root chakra also connects us to the earth and to the people, animals, and living beings we can enjoy a compatible relationship with. Without a genuine connection to others in the physical world, our soul becomes adrift, with no anchor. Like a limb cut off from a tree, we lose the necessary energy we need to fulfill our purpose and maintain a healthy mind, body, and spirit.

The intuitive information contained in the first chakra has to do with our early family issues and experiences, our ability to connect with others and the environment, and our capacity to move forward and make concrete changes in our everyday lives.

Ask yourself the following questions to better understand if your first chakra is supporting your authentic self:

✵ Overall, am I satisfied with my current relationship connections to my family and friends?

✵ What recurring patterns and challenges do I continue to confront that originated in my family of origin?

✵ What are the blessings that I have received from my family?

✵ What and whom do I feel most connected to? What and who is my spiritual family?

When your authentic self is known and appreciated by others, you are supported in living and expressing your purpose and truth. If you do not have the kind of connection with others that you need, spend time cultivating relationships with those who can know and appreciate the true you.

I am connected to the earth and to all living beings.

123. Second Chakra: Giving and Receiving

The second chakra is the sacral chakra, which is located in the lower abdomen, below the navel. This power center is concerned with creativity, sexuality, finances, and issues of control. This is the Johnny Appleseed of chakras, as it empowers us to spread the seeds of creative life force energy out into the material world. This chakra teaches us balance through give and take, sharing and receiving and manifesting and experiencing.

Empowering us to draw from the well of cosmic energy within, the sacral chakra motivates us to create and manifest our true self in the world. When we expect to be taken care of by others and do not rely on our inner source energy, we negate the power of this chakra. Compromising our authentic self by becoming a victim to unfulfilling relationships, unsatisfying work or career choices, and empty physical distractions and pleasure weakens the health of this chakra. However, discovering your inner goodness and casting the seeds of positive energy out into the world strengthens this chakra and produces positive manifestations.

This chakra teaches us the lessons of karma and cause and effect. What we send out into the world comes back to us in the exact measure that we set in motion. Before we can manifest fulfilling experiences and abundance, we must act in integrity with our truth.

The intuitive information contained within this chakra includes issues of material success, finances, and relationships and our ability to express and share our creativity and manifest our passions and dreams. Issues with sexuality, reproduction, childbirth and the ability to express physical and sexual intimacy can also be found in this chakra.

Ask yourself the following questions to better know if the second chakra is clearly broadcasting the energy of your authentic self:

✵ In what area of my life do I most use my creativity?

✵ Do I need and want more intimacy in my relationships?

✵ Am I comfortable with my sexuality?

✵ Am I confident that I am able to take care of myself financially?

✵ Is my career satisfying?

✵ Do I feel that others and the world owe me something?

Meditate on these questions and continue to nurture the seeds of positive energy within.

I spread the seeds of love and abundance in the world,
and what I give returns back to me tenfold.

124. Third Chakra: Your Personal Power

The third chakra is the solar plexus chakra. It is located between the navel and the base of the sternum. This chakra is the power center of your authentic self. Listening to and supporting your truth, respecting yourself, and maintaining healthy boundaries with others strengthens this chakra and heightens your overall vibrational frequency.

The third chakra is the center of our personal power, self-esteem, and physical intuition. When we listen to our gut intuition and allow it to inform us of what is right for us and what conflicts with our integrity and sense of honor, we come into the full awareness of our authentic self.

This chakra transmits life force energy into personal power. It is the energy distribution center for integrating the spirit into the personality self. When our personality or ego self listens and acts on the direction and guidance of our spirit, we flow within the current of higher-vibrational energy. Fear dissipates and we outwardly express confidence and inner strength. However, when our ego self believes that it is its own source of power, we experience insecurity, stress, and anxiety. We develop a false self to hide our vulnerabilities and fears.

The intuitive information contained in the third chakra has to do with our personal power, insecurities, fears, self-esteem, personality, ego, and ability to listen to and trust our most basic instinctual and gut intuition.

Ask yourself the following questions to better understand if your third chakra is supporting your authentic self:

✵ Can I trust my intuition and act on what I know is true for me?

✵ Am I comfortable with my personal power?

✵ Where in my life do I feel the most powerful?

✵ In what area of my life does my self-esteem need improving?

✵ Do I need the approval of others?

✵ Do I choose what is right for me even if others do not always agree with my choices?

The center of your authentic self, the third chakra is your inner compass, guiding you through your everyday decisions and choices.

I trust my gut intuition.

125. Fourth Chakra: True Love

The fourth chakra is the heart chakra. It is located in the center of the chest, near the heart. This chakra is the energetic spiritual and emotional axis of love. It absorbs all degrees and expressions of emotional energy along with the higher vibrations of divine love. Its function is to assist us in learning how to integrate the higher divine attributes of love, compassion, forgiveness, and kindness into our everyday lives and relationships. The ability to heal the self and others and transmit cosmic healing energy into the world is also centered in this area.

When we are unable to forgive or commit to loving ourselves or another or when we value material things more than emotional well-being and compassion, the heart chakra contracts. Giving love without being able to receive it or expecting to be loved without returning love to others also creates an imbalance of the fourth chakra. Having a difficult time loving self and others or being fearful of acknowledging and expressing authentic emotions limits the flow of vital source energy through the fourth chakra, the heart, and consequently the entire body.

The center of divine love and compassion, the fourth chakra also contains our emotional fears and vulnerabilities and our relationship wounds and resentments. This chakra reveals our capacity to create a balance between the love and care that we give to others and the love and care that we give to ourselves. The lessons associated with the fourth chakra have to do with our ability to release the lower-ego emotions of anger, jealousy, and fear and receive and embody the energy of unconditional divine love. This chakra also empowers us to be true to our feelings and emotions. Being present to all of our emotions, the positive ones as well as those that are more stressful, allows for the emergence of our innate loving goodness.

When we love ourselves with the deep and pure energy of divine love, our authentic self blossoms and expresses itself fully and completely.

Ask yourself the following questions to better tune in to your capacity to love yourself and others:

✵ Who from my past or present do I still need to forgive?

✵ Are there any past relationships from which I still need to heal?

✵ Do I have loving and supportive relationships?

✵ Can I be vulnerable and safely express my emotions and feelings?

✵ Do I love myself?

Love and embrace all of who you are.

I heal my emotional wounds and receive divine love.

126. Fifth Chakra: Express Yourself

The fifth chakra is the throat chakra, located in the neck and throat area. Empowering us to speak and express our truth, this chakra supports us in living and speaking with integrity and honesty. It assists us by funneling life force energy into our authentic self and then motivates us to express and share our truth with others. The ability to discern your truth, make choices, and align your will with higher wisdom and guidance is also connected to this chakra.

We constantly weigh what we want to share with others and the world and what we would rather suppress. When we express and share our authentic truth and individuality, we flow within the powerful currents of life force energy. What we stifle and repress causes energy blockages and creates dysfunction. Expression creates movement. The spiritual challenge of this chakra is to release our self-judgments, surrender to what is, and trust and allow the moment-to-moment emergence and expression of our personal truth.

The lessons associated with the fifth chakra have to do with the ability to communicate and express ourselves, our fear of being judged, and our judgments and criticism of others. Allowing others to exert control over you or controlling others and your environment creates an imbalance in this chakra.

To further understand if your fifth chakra is fully supporting your ability to express your authentic self, ask yourself these questions:

✵ Do I harbor negative self-judgments?

✵ Am I overly critical of myself or others?

✵ Can I accept what happens in my life, or do I have a need to control outcomes?

✵ Do I allow others to control my thoughts, feelings, and actions?

✵ Do I speak my truth?

Fill your lungs with air and breathe. Express and speak your truth and release your need to control how others perceive you. Just be and allow others to speak their truth.

I express my true self to others.

127. Sixth Chakra: Authentic Truth

The sixth chakra is the brow chakra, or the third eye chakra, and is located above and between the eyes. This chakra is the gateway for cosmic wisdom. It channels the energy of enlightened thoughts and higher consciousness and empowers us to become aware of possibilities, ideas, inspiration, and cosmic vision. Our thoughts, attitudes, beliefs, and judgments are meant to evolve. As we accept and contemplate higher truth and wisdom, we are renewed and transformed. We live as spiritual beings, empowered beyond the confines of physicality. When we stay stuck in our negative judgments, attitudes, and limited thinking and knowledge, we restrict the flow of life force energy. Our brain and mental functioning withers, shrinks, and short-circuits.

It is through the sixth chakra that we become aware of the spiritual realm and consciously commune with spiritual influences. This chakra is also the gateway for the psychic skill of clairvoyance, the ability to visually see energy information.

An inability to let go, negative thought patterns, excessive mind chatter, lack of self-evaluation, rejection of new ideas, and feelings of inadequacy all impact the health of this chakra. The energy information associated with the sixth chakra includes our acceptance of higher truths, our ability to become aware of spiritual reality, and our trust in the love and benevolence of higher forces.

In the sixth chakra, your authentic self is expressed as consciousness and pure awareness. To better understand if your sixth chakra is supporting your authentic self, ask yourself the following questions:

✵ Is my mind filled with constant mind chatter?

✵ Am I able to allow my perception of my truth to evolve and change as I grow in awareness?

✵ Do I meditate and allow a higher vision of my authentic self to unfold?

It is through the sixth chakra that you perceive yourself as a spiritual being. Your authentic self takes on a new, expanded dimension that supports and nurtures you in the here and now.

As I receive divine wisdom, I grow and evolve.

128. Seventh Chakra: The Eternal Self

The seventh chakra is the crown chakra, located an inch or two above the head. States of pure spiritual illumination, acceptance of grace, and enlightenment emerge through this chakra. Concerned with our soul plan and its integration in our day-to-day lives, this chakra converts higher life force energy into three-dimensional, workable phases. Keeping in sync with our soul’s evolutionary agenda, this chakra is the bridge between timelessness and time. It empowers us to evolve through attracting and creating those opportunities that adhere to the lessons, challenges, and joys that we have come into the physical life to experience. This is the chakra that is responsible for disrupting the status quo and initiating change in our daily lives. When we are not living our soul plan, the seventh chakra takes charge and sees to it that in one way or another we begin to pay attention. Unexpected events, such as being fired from your workplace, confronting a life-threatening illness, divorce, or financial collapse, are the calling card of the seventh chakra.

The seventh chakra is the portal through which you can access higher-vibrational energy and guidance. Your spirit guides and angels and other benevolent spirit beings communicate and influence you through this chakra. Past-life influences and your soul plan and life script can also be accessed here.

The seventh chakra can also bring miracles and blessings into your life. Stagnation and resistance to change, unwillingness to surrender to your higher purpose, denial of spirituality, the inability to trust life, and selfishness create disharmony in this chakra. When this chakra is unbalanced or not open to life force energy, you will feel that you are out of sync with your life purpose. You may also experience discord in your everyday affairs and have unfulfilled aspirations and dreams. When you generate positive energy and listen and act on spiritual guidance and your personal truth, this chakra manifests as opportunities and experiences of goodness, love, and abundance. This chakra empowers you to contribute to the common good and to become spiritually aware.

Ask yourself the following questions to better understand if your authentic self is receiving the nurturing life force energy:

✵ Can I tell the difference between higher guidance and my ego-based desires?

✵ Do I regularly find ways to be of service to others?

✵ Am I often surprised by unexpected changes and challenges in my everyday life?

✵ Am I willing to let go of what I want my life to be and allow myself to be led?

✵ Do I see beauty and the hand of divine grace in my everyday activities and experiences?

The seventh chakra transmits your individualized spirit and soul plan into your authentic self. Without this awareness, we feel as if we are limited and powerless humans roaming the planet at the mercy of outer forces. In truth, you are divine presence.

I open myself to the higher vibrations of divine energy.

129. Exploring Past Lives

Many years ago I lived in a small town in rural Georgia. I moved there from Southern California to help my mother, who was the director of a children’s home in the area. It was quite a culture shock. In California, I was involved with a metaphysical healing center, where I regularly went to workshops and classes and explored my own psychic and medium abilities. In Georgia, I felt as if I had stepped back in time. I was in Baptist Bible heaven. Psychics and anything New Age were viewed with skepticism by most people and as the devil’s work by many. After about a year of not trying to ruffle anyone’s feathers, I was in need of a New Age fix. With a strong desire to uncover a past life through hypnotic regression, I began to look for a hypnotherapist. The few people whom I asked for a referral all mentioned an older Methodist minister who lived on the outskirts of town. I called him and we set up a meeting to discuss a hypnosis session.

We met in his small, wooden, white-washed chapel. He was a kind man who seemed surprised that I was interested in hypnosis. As we sat for a few minutes engaged in small talk, I told him that I was specifically interested in accessing a past life. To my surprise, he seemed to take it in stride. He told me that he had never done hypnosis for this purpose but was willing to give it a try.

The following week, I came in for my appointment. While I reclined in a big, comfortable chair in his office, he calmly induced me into a relaxed hypnotic state. I quickly began to see images of a different time and place. I was a man and a priest in what I knew was Egypt. I was standing in a large colosseum about to give a speech. Although I cannot recall exactly what I said, I know that I challenged the current spiritual beliefs. What I said was not well received. I was almost immediately cast out of the city, never to return. For the remainder of that life, I lived in a small hut along the banks of the Nile River.

Accessing this life was of tremendous help to me. There were similarities in the challenges that I confronted in that lifetime and the feelings and choices that I was making in my current life. Understanding my soul history and the meaning and purpose behind my present challenges inspired me to become more aware of the lessons that I was learning and to heal.

In the many past lives that I have since explored with my clients and on my own, it has become clear that our current life lessons and challenges are similar to those that we have encountered in previous lives. The circumstances, places, and physical characteristics may change, but the deeper lessons do not. We evolve along a soul-path continuum that continuously offers us the opportunity to evolve and grow by experiencing the effects of our choices. Past-life regression empowers us to better identify the areas where we most need to grow and what needs healing. It offers the ultimate big-picture view of our journey as a soul.

One of the most important benefits that I have received in my past-life regressions is the ability to experience my authentic self in another body and another time. We are not our body, our mistakes, our socioeconomic status, or our current circumstances. Past-life regression provides us with the opportunity to experience the core self within. It puts us into contact with a part of ourselves that is true, wise, and eternal. This is the authentic you.

I am not my body or my circumstances. I am eternal.

130. Little Ball of Light

You come into this world a pure being of innocence and love. Your angels escort you through the love and bliss of the heavens and into the waiting arms of the physical world. Filled with courage and hope, your spirit arrives with all it needs to fulfill its earthly destiny. Yet this awareness and knowing are quickly forgotten. The thoughts, emotions, beliefs, and illusions of the world take over. We assume a position of powerlessness, unaware of who we are and what we are capable of.

Although you may not always remember that wisdom, courage, and eternal joy are alive within you, this is your core being. Reclaim your true essence and free your spirit. Embrace the possibility that you are more than you believe yourself to be. Go backward; forget what you have been told and the assumptions that you have made about yourself. Close your eyes and imagine yourself as the little ball of light that came soaring into this galaxy on its way to birth. Feel the energy and luminosity of yourself as light. Warmth, knowing, confidence, abundance, and joy radiate from the depth of your spirit.

Find a picture of yourself as an infant or young child, or recall as best you can an image of yourself as a child. Look at you. Look in your eyes for the light. It is there. Become aware that it has never left you. Dialogue with the young you and tell yourself that you remember. All that you need is within you. Relax and allow it to surface.

I feel the light within.